Mi Contra Fa

Lock spinning

On a trip to Colonial Williamsburg, I picked up a small envelope of indigo-dyed Long-haired Leicester wool locks. I've gotten around to spinning them, in the hopes of having white (Wensleydale natural), brown (Romney natural) and blue hand-spun wool I could embroidery with.

I looked up information on spinning from the lock, and learned that you need to "flick open" the lock by flick carding it. A pet brush works as a flick carder in a pinch.  My tourist locks are a jumbled mess of shortish locks, so I am doing them in ones and twos, rather than in a big handful like in the video.  It takes me back to brushing dolls' hair - blue My Little Pony tails in particular. 

Things learned, in no particular order.

1. The indigo is not colorfast. My spindle and fingers turned blue. (So I either need to figure out how to fix it, or maybe this is not a good idea for embroidering with.)
2. For some reason, this was easier to do with the drop spindle than the grasped spindle.  Big ugly slubs with the grasped spindle.
3. I would have thought lock spinning would have been the ultimate way to do worsted.  If it is, worsted yarn looks much different than I expected. Still pretty fuzzy.
4. Part of me thought lock spinning would be simpler/easier than combing wool for worsted.  No, brushing out each individual lock is a big pain in the butt.  Want to get Viking combs at Sheep and Wool.
5. I can totally cheat and pick the fluff out of the brush and spin that, too.  It's not worsted when I do that, since the fibers are in all orientations.  Don't see much difference in the yarn? But maybe it would come out in the tensile strength.
6. The fluff is easier to spin than the locks.  Not sure if that is because I learned on fluffy roving? Or if fluffy carded roving is popular because fluff is easier to spin than combed wool.

Always learning

I'm teaching an Intro to SCA Camping tomorrow.  Since it's been a while since I made a foil meal, I figured I should fire up the grill and test-drive my recipes for the class.  I unexpectedly also learned more about charcoal cooking.

I don't usually do outdoor cooking in all weather.  Sure, wind and rain makes things harder, but... Matchlight charcoal, yeah? How hard can it be?  I got my first set of coals lit, put the lid on the grill (yes, with the air holes open) and wandered off to chop vegetables.

And when I came back, instead of nicely ashed coals, I had half-started coals.  Apparently, lid on, holes open isn't enough air to catch the charcoal?  Or else some of my initial coals went out.  I did find that I had to use 2-3 matches to get it going instead of just one.  So I learned more about charcoal grills today!

Foil Meals: I bought thin-sliced chicken breasts and put them along with thin slices of potatoes, carrots, and onions into a two-layer foil packet with Italian dressing, just like old times.  I know you're supposed to have more coals on the top than the bottom, but I think I had roughly equal amounts - but I planned to flip it halfway through anyhow, so it should have minimized any difficulties.  10 minutes chicken-side down, then 7 minutes potato-side down, and it was nicely done.  A few potatoes were a little underdone, but they were edible.

Bread: I left myself good notes from the last time, so this was more like a review than a pathfinder.  Used King Arthur bread flour, about 12-15 coals under and about 20 over, for 50 min covered the whole time. Beautiful-looking loaf, first slice tastes okay although I'm not sure if I'm still smelling raw flour.  Maybe should let cook for a full hour.

Red Mountain Mead Hall and Night on the Town

Two events in two weeks! It's like some sort of record.

Red Mountain Mead Hall

This is a charming, laid-back event at a gorgeous 4-H camp in Isenfir.  The main hall had a large fireplace and a really rustic log-cabin look to it - really felt like a mead-hall. I took classes on Birka posaments and sprang, did my "Beowulf" performance as requested, and enjoyed a quite delicious feast. 

I tent camped, and there was frost on the ground both mornings.  Lessons learned: my old blue puffy sleeping bag is still hella warm.  Next time I put up the pyramid tent, try not putting the stakes in all the way.  Get the pole up, and then get the stakes down.  It was just unreasonably hard to get the pole up.  The only thing I can think that I did differently from when I first got the tent is that I drove the stakes all in.  (I remember I did not when I first used the tent, because I caught my gown on one of them and tore a hole in it.)

Night on the Town

I don't know if I've been to this local Lochmere event before.  Since I've been rationing my events (e.g., since kids), a mostly-fencing event doesn't usually rise to the level of me spending one of my 'chits' on it. Having just spent a full Fri-Sun in Isenfir, I didn't think I'd be able to make this one. But the weather was lovely and my husband was okay with it, so off I went.

Good Garb: I wore my oldest still-fitting violet tunic under my 7th cen. caftan, with appropriate jewelry and headgear. And you know what? I rocked it.  More and more these days, I am looking in the mirror and seeing things that fit well and look right, instead of seeing a to-do list of things to improve.  And at the event, a lady actually recognized what I was wearing down to the era, because she was interested in making the same sort of garb.  Yay more Anglo-Saxons!

Bardic: Lazy afternoon hanging with the bards.  Got some tips from Lord Wyn that might help my strained throat.  Warm up with humming, then open-mouth humming, then la-la-las.  Keep throat relaxed when singing.  I tried it and I think it helped.  I told "Thrymskvitha" here and at Red Mead Hall, and it went really well both times.  Comedy!

Spinning: I entered my spinning into the Novice A&S competition, since I've been doing it just since last year's Sheep and Wool.  And I won!  Woot.

 

 

Plying wool and spinning flax

Plying Wool

Inspired by a downright cold camping trip at Red Mountain Mead Hall, I thought I'd nalbind a hat.  Since I still have a bunch of roving, I thought I'd also spin the yarn for it.  Now, I don't want to be nalbinding this hat forever.  A thicker yarn would be okay.  But I have having trouble spinning as thick as I wanted!  So I decided to spin a sort of medium-ish weight (I suppose I should learn yarn-speak) and then ply it.  I did that today, for a small amount of yarn that will surely not be enough. 

It actually went fairly smoothly.  I spun the singles on a low whorl, so I plied on a high whorl.  I put the two skeins of singles, just pulled off the spindle, into a bowl to contain them, drew up the two yarns, and spun them together.  I didn't handle the high whorl spindle the same as I do for the actual spinning - I seem to have trouble doing grasped spinning with so little spindle up at the top.  But the yarns wanted to spin together, so I just had to help things along, doing a sort of supported spindle thing on my leg.

The two-ply yarn is now on the niddy-noddy waiting to be put into a hot soak.

Spinning Flax

I finally got around to spinning the flax I got at the Yorktown Victory Center.  Oy.  The long staple is hard to manage.  I'm spinning it finer than anything I've done so far, which is cool, but I'm having problems drafting.  I am using water, which helps.  Not sure how much of the problem is the fiber preparation (pretty rough) and how much of the problem is my inexperience.  Anyhow, did a bit and have put it down for the day - no use getting frustrated.